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A Story of Erasure: Indigenous Experiences from the US and Nepal

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Inside the Tomaquag Museum Indigenous communities worldwide, be it in America or here in Nepal, have suffered great injustices at the hands of colonialist settlers.  This visit to Tomaquag Museum in Exeter, Rhode Island, during my Cultural Exchange Program sponsored by RELO— Regional English Language Office, and facilitated by the University of Rhode Island, was one of the most powerful experiences I've ever had. The rosetinted view I had of the American Revolution and Democracy had to come to terms with the reality of the American Indigenous experiences.   The Declaration of Independence, which is said to enshrine the democratic values of individual rights, equality and sovereignty, and is seen as one of the most important documents in the history of modern democracy, to the people of the Narragansett and the Niantic Nations, it symbolizes oppression, injustice, dehumanisation, and seizure of indigenous land, erasure of people and their cultural identity. The Narrag...
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What Happens When Jaggi Vasudev Ghostwrites?

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  What matters more- the Opinions or the Speaker?     Over the last couple of weeks, I had been posting some particularly bigoted views on Facebook. Some were extremely misleading and others factually and scientifically incorrect. The idea was to pass someone else's ideas, someone else's views, someone else's statements as my own. Based on the reactions that followed, I believe it was quite successful, especially towards the beginning.  These were not my statements. Those were Jaggu Vasudev's statements, you might more commonly know him as "Sadhguru". What I did was, remove the personality, the charisma, the allure, the authority of the person, and instead presented the words bare-bones. I wanted to see how people would take these statements, would they see the farce, would they still take the words with equal reverence?   The posts got varied responses, some were pissed off, offended. Some were irked. Some agreed with it and some found ...
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Us and Them

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I. Dressed in grey shorts and a maroon T-shirt with an almost empty black backpack, I walk along the footpath by the Sanchaykosh Bhawan . There’s barely any space left along the sidewalk. People from across Kathmandu have thronged to Thamel today, at Durbar Square –a kilometre away— another group have gathered to commemorate the dead. I have decided, instead, to be a part of Nepal’s first Pride Parade. A sense of joy, a sense of pride is welling up in my chest, I have been a part of something historic. I have become, by participating in the parade, an ally of the LGBTIQ+ community. Instead of getting lost in a centuries-old tradition, I once loved as a child, I have become a part of the birth of a new tradition that celebrates the living and not the dead. The “progressive” in me is happy, wondering why people have issues when other people do not live their lives according to what society considers “normal” and acceptable.  The surrounding is festive. Bright, wide smiles. Rainbow Fl...
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